Behind the scenes: How Ford tariff team whipped together consumer campaign in 72 hours
Ford dealer: 'Holy s**t, they crushed it'
In an exclusive interview, Ford President Andrew Frick revealed that a rapid response team of fewer than two dozen key players put together its tariff-response consumer campaign within 72 hours.
As a result, a Ford dealer who tracked how things unfolded behind the scenes, told me, “What they decided to do was incredibly ballsy and effective. All of us just watched and realized, ‘Holy shit. They crushed it.’’’
An industry sales surge at the end of March, driven by fear that car prices would spike in response to tariffs ordered by President Trump to take effect on April 2, left car dealers all over the country stunned, according to interviews this week.
“People wanted to beat the tariff bump. Buyers realized that cars sitting on lots weren’t yet tariffed,” the Ford dealer said. “This topic is highly sensitive now.”
Dealers interviewed for the story asked that their identity be kept confidential because they’re not authorized to discuss strategy and automakers don’t want to make the White House angry.
Industry sales data for the month of March shows that buyers flocked to car lots all over the country to snap up Ford vehicles — along with cars, trucks and SUVs sold by Toyota, General Motors, Stellantis, Honda, Kia, Nissan and Hyundai.
“People realized prices are going to go up. People finally got the message,” a Stellantis dealer told me. “When you have a Ram heavy duty pickup made in Mexico that sells for $80,000 or $100,000 already, there’s no way a consumer can pay a 25% tariff. How can a dealer find a way to absorb a 25% tariff on an $80,000 vehicle? No one is working with that kind of profit margin.”
While everyone was watching inventory on car lots shrink in the final days of March as sales surged, Ford realized it had to take action immediately to keep sales going.
Ford worked against the Trump deadline to put a deal together for consumers.
The team gathered on the 11th floor of Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn.
“This was late Thursday night, past 6 o’clock” on March 27, Frick said. “We’d worked late every night. We agreed that we were going to do employee pricing. Everyone said, ‘That feels really good. We have to go see what we can do to make the offer.’ So the team worked all day Saturday and Sunday, not only putting together the employee pricing but putting together the 'from America for America’ campaign.”
Their campaign would offer to everyday consumers access to a highly coveted pricing formula meant for car company employees that slashes new car prices by thousands of dollars, depending on the model and options.
These price packages allow the customer to pay less than the dealer invoice. In other words, employee pricing is less than what the dealer pays to buy it from Ford and then resell it.
Frick led the team of about 20 people from retail sales, marketing, advertising and communications on that crucial Thursday night who shaped what needed to be done and how to deliver the message to consumers immediately.
Frick, as president of Ford Blue and Model e, runs the company’s global retail business units for gas, hybrid and electric vehicles. He is also interim president of the Ford Pro business unit. Frick reports to Ford CEO Jim Farley.
“We took our dealers through it on Tuesday. We had an entire all dealer go-to-market call on April 1. We had taken some dealers through it on Monday, privately, ahead of time,” Frick said. “Then we announced it to all dealers around 3 o’clock on April 1st.”
The White House confirmed on April 2nd the tariffs would take effect as scheduled on April 3rd and auto parts would begin May 3.
‘A pivotal moment’
The Ford team realized consumers were worried. They knew that people were rushing into dealerships to trade old vehicles for new ones and Ford didn’t want that momentum to stop, as concern escalated.
“We knew this was going to be a very pivotal moment for our customers and we knew there would be concern and uncertainty in the market, just from reading the news and everything that was going on,” Frick said.
“We felt it was a perfect time for Ford to be there for our customers and provide certainty and clarity for them when they really need it,” he said. “We knew this was going to be a moment ... We had been scenario planning for a couple weeks, more than a couple weeks, on what to expect.”
Ford, along with its competitors, are navigating an uncertain landscape where the government releases new information every single day
“People felt they needed to rush in at the end of March because they were afraid the pricing was going to change on April 2nd, because that was tariff day,” Frick said. “That's what I mean by some of the uncertainty in the market.”
Ford and Lincoln dealers leaned into the plan to launch the massive ad campaign.
“We are doing everything we can to control the controllables, in terms of what's right in front of us and what we know,” Frick said. “We are still working through a lot of details with the administration on what is going to go into some of these tariffs, as it relates not only to the assembly of vehicles but to parts, and how they're accounted for. That's really important.”
He noted that 80% of Ford vehicles sold in America are built in America — “so we feel very confident that will put us in a relatively good position. But we are not immune from the impact of these tariffs. There is a lot to navigate through when it comes to the market around pricing, what different companies are going to be doing. Certainly, we expect some level of pricing (increase) that will be happening at some point, when the dust settles.”
The 102-year-old automaker employs the most autoworkers in the country, all of them UAW members. Ford has not announced temporary layoffs — unlike Stellantis, which owns Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge and Ram.
“I feel that we have a command of the issues that are in front of us that are known,” Frick said. “There are still things, like I mentioned before, we're working through the details on. I have confidence that our team has a good command of what is happening and are having the right conversations.”
The Ford team is working through “high levels of stress” with a “reasoned, calm approach” to planning — working with what they know now and “adjusting for the variables that we’re not quite sure of yet. The more we spend time as a team working through this, which is a lot, we feel like we'll make the right decisions on behalf of our customers, our employees and key stakeholders -- like dealers and suppliers.”
Analysts at Barclays noted that GM and Stellantis “produce only about half of their U.S.-sold vehicles in the country, making them more vulnerable to cost increases,” noted CBT News, which provides industry updates to car dealers.
What sets Ford apart from others, its team said privately, was the decision to establish an all-in commitment from April 3 through June 2 that would keep people calm.
The automaker could have offered standard month-to-month discounts instead of a comprehensive campaign that stripped all mystery from the process, but the company leaders realized this approach would provide clarity and comfort.
“You pay what we pay and it’s a set price,” a Ford source said. “It’s straightforward. Employee pricing does that.”
Numbers tell the story
In exclusive interviews this week, car dealers heaped praise (while using enthusiastic profanity) on Ford Motor Co. for deciding to make available its employee pricing to the general public, a move not seen in more than a decade.
They wanted to continue the “really, really” strong sales that closed first quarter.
In March, Ford saw a year-over-year sales increase of 10.1% to 199,672 vehicles.
Those monthly sales totals included a 38.2% jump in F-Series pickup truck sales to 72,435 and a 137.9% spike in Lincoln Navigator sales to 2,136.
These products are the company’s biggest moneymakers. A 2025 Lincoln Navigator starts at $99,995.
Overall year-to-date sales at Ford are down 1.3% to 501,291 from 2024. This reflects tepid car sales in January and February due to weather and what Cox Automotive called a traditional “New Year lull.”
Consumers are buying traditional gas, hybrid and all-electric vehicles across the Ford lineup and industrywide.
New cars on lots currently aren’t priced with tariffs, dealers told me. But the supply is dwindling rapidly for everyone.
While sales are flowing now, dealers say they expect prices to surge and demand to stall. Customers are calling to schedule delayed car repairs on vehicles they expected to sell, instead saving those extra dollars, dealers said.
Used car prices are already going up as overall supply of vehicles not yet subjected to tariffs shrinks.
As of March 25, industry-reported data compiled from Motor Intelligence showed automakers had this many days’ supply (at a normal pace of sales) until their supply ran out:
Ford: 74
Stellantis: 65
GM: 50
Hyundai: 48
Nissan: 41
Honda: 40
Kia: 32
Toyota: 24
Dealers told Shifting Gears privately on Tuesday that data updated on April 1 showed Toyota was down to 12 days — “really low” — with Subaru at 30 days.
A Stellantis dealer noted that the company responded to Ford’s quick consumer response to the tariffs with an offer of current incentives or employee pricing, whichever totaled bigger savings.
Consumers are worried about everything, he said. “I was talking to a guy who had a warehouse that normally holds 3,000 TVs and it now has 500. Everybody is buying TVs right now, too.”
Big car sales now, however, offer a “temporary win” if prices climb, dealers said. They’re considering what’s ahead: Employee layoffs and cuts to ad spending.
“Think about all dealers cutting their media buy,” the Stellantis dealer said. “The media world can’t lose that money — radio, TV, print, digital. Ad reps get commission. It all cascades into other areas.”
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We are buying a new camper next week for many of the reasons you pointed out. I have the vibe from the dealer they're a little nervous about what's to come.
GEEEZUS! Thanks for sharing another proactive responsive from the FOMOCO.
Gregg Wilczynski